Smoking in the military: An old habit dies hard

FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2007 file photo, a U.S. Army soldier from the 3rd Brigade combat team of 101st Airborne Division smokes a cigarette during a patrol mission in the town of Owesap, 20 kilometers (about 12,4 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)
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FILE - In this Nov. 23, 2007 file photo, a U.S. Army soldier from the 3rd Brigade combat team of 101st Airborne Division smokes a cigarette during a patrol mission in the town of Owesap, 20 kilometers (about 12,4 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, File)
/ AP

Army Spc. John Beall, 20, of Charlotte, N.C., who serves in Headquarters Company of the 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team in Iraq, said he tends to light up when he's bored and when others are smoking around him. He said he wouldn't oppose a ban.

Ricky Wilkerson, 49, of Lebanon, Tennessee, is in a stop-smoking program at the Veterans Administration hospital in Nashville. His family farmed tobacco in Kentucky, but he didn't start smoking until he was a 21-year-old Army infantryman stationed at the Panama Canal. He thinks the military should ban smoking, yet admits there were times when he was happy to have a smoke to relax.

"You're in the maneuvers and you've worked hard all day and they said 'Stop, light 'em if you got 'em.' Everybody fired up a cigarette," Wilkerson said.

During his deployment in Iraq in 2005, Spc. Will Pike, 25, of Boston said his 3rd Infantry Division combat engineer company tried to ban smoking. He quit for five months, then started puffing again.

"Everybody went completely crazy," said Pike. "If you take it away from us entirely, you're going to have some very angry soldiers."

Smoking helped her stay focused "instead of having my nerves take control," she said.

Injured in Afghanistan and retired, the former paratrooper says smoking helps with her post-traumatic stress disorder. "A lot of times instead of hitting somebody, I sit down and have a cigarette."

A nicotine hit may feel good, but scientists say its brain action probably makes post-traumatic stress worse in the long run.

A study last year by the RAND Corp. research organization estimated nearly 20 percent of military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, or about 300,000 people, have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression. Clinics treat both the disorder and addictions at the same time, but few do, it said.

However, getting the entire military to go cold turkey is wishful thinking, said John Fink, 43, of Dickson, Tennessee.

"They've been talking about this for over 10 years now. Nothing has ever happened," said Fink, a Navy veteran and employee at the VA hospital in Nashville. A ban would drive people out of the military, he said, and "the military can't afford to lose anyone."

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Associated Press writers Heidi Vogt and Alfred de Montesquiou in southern Afghanistan, Ben Evans in Washington, Kristin Hall in Nashville, Tennessee, Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Kevin Maurer in Wilmington, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS name of N.C. writer in contributor line at end.)